NAS100 position size calculator

Size a Nasdaq 100 trade from your risk and a stop in index points — $1 per point per lot by default, or the contract your broker uses.

Updated 31 October 2026

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How sizing works on the Nasdaq 100

NAS100 — also listed as US100, USTEC or NDX — is a CFD on the Nasdaq 100 index, priced in US dollars. Index CFDs are measured in points: one point is a 1.0 move in the index. The calculator starts from a contract of 1 per point, so one lot gains or loses $1 for every point and 0.01 lot $0.01. The contract varies by broker — $10 or $20 per point per lot instead of $1, for example — and the lot size changes in proportion, so the contract size field matters more here than on any forex pair. On a USD account no conversion is needed.

A worked example: a 60-point stop

A $10,000 account risking 1% has $100 to lose. With a 60-point stop and the default contract, one lot loses 60 × $1 = $60, so the raw size is 100 ÷ 60 = 1.667 lots, rounded down to 1.66 lots: an actual risk of $99.60.

Now the same trade at a broker whose NAS100 contract is $10 per point. Type 10 in the contract size field: one lot loses 60 × $10 = $600, the raw size is 0.167 and the position is 0.16 lots, risking $96. Trading 1.66 lots there would risk $996 — ten times the plan. It is the most expensive index sizing mistake there is.

Volatility and typical stops

The Nasdaq 100 is technology-heavy and usually moves more, in percentage terms, than the S&P 500. At 24,500 a 1% move is 245 points, so intraday stops of 40 to 100 points are ordinary and a news candle can travel further. The cash open at 09:30 New York often brings the widest candles of the day, and US data at 08:30 can move the futures before it. Spreads widen outside the cash session and around the daily break. In MT5 the symbol's point depends on its decimals — 0.1 of an index point with one decimal, 0.01 with two — so 600 MT5 points can be just 60 index points — count the stop in index points here.

Nasdaq hours and the New York Kill Zone

Nasdaq's cash session runs from 09:30 to 16:00 New York time. The New York AM Kill Zone, 07:00–10:00, covers the 08:30 data, the run-up to the open and the first half hour of cash trading, when much of the day's range is often set. The London (02:00–05:00) and Asian (20:00–00:00) Kill Zones trade on futures liquidity and are usually quieter for this index. The Kill Zone converter shows these windows in your time zone; today's sessions and news for the index are on the NAS100 market page.

Common NAS100 sizing mistakes

• Ignoring the contract size: a calculator set to $1 per point and a broker at $10 or $20 per point give lot sizes that differ 10 or 20 times.
• Counting the stop in MT5 points instead of index points when the symbol is quoted with decimals.
• Reusing an S&P 500 lot size. At 24,500 against 6,700, the same percentage move is about 3.7 times as many points on the Nasdaq, so the same lots carry far more risk.
• Sizing off a calm pre-market quote and then entering in the 09:30 spread, when slippage adds to the loss per lot.

For the broader index use the S&P 500 calculator; the general method is in how to calculate position size.